By Editorial EL PILÓN.
La Jagua del Pilar, south of La Guajira, is classified as the first municipality with “extreme risk” in the registration rate of identity cards for the territorial elections on October 29, according to the sixth report of the Electoral Observation Mission Colombian (MOE) on this process.
According to the organization, in this municipality 578 identification cards were registered before the National Registry of Civil Status between October 29, 2022 and April 29 this year, while there would be about 2,595 adultsaccording to the projection of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE).
HIGHER RATE THAN NATIONAL
The MOE defines the number of registered as “atypical”, because besides It is far from the country average. The polling station with the largest number of new ballots is that of the corregimiento El Plan, where they were registered 161 personas until said date.
“Municipalities with extreme risk have ID registration rates 8.8 times higher than the national rate.” is read in the document. The others 4 Colombian municipalities with this description are Puerto Gaitán and Cabuyaro, in Meta; Paya, Boyacá, and Puerto Santander in the Norte de Santander department.
WHY WOULD IT MEAN EXTREME RISK?
“An atypical and excessively high level of the registration rate of identification cards may suggest that some irregularity is occurring in a municipality,” according to the EOM.
The foregoing, according to the platform that promotes political rights, would be supported by “Most of the municipalities do not present such strong population changes (mobility from other municipalities) or residence within the municipalities that implies so many transfers to other polling stations.”
WHAT ARE THE AUTHORITIES DOING?
EL PILÓN tried to establish communication with a magistrate of the National Electoral Council to find out what actions have been taken against possible irregularities in the process, but until the closing of this edition it was not possible.
However, this electoral entity defines electoral transhumance as “the act of registering the identity card to vote in a different municipality to the one in which one has residence and constitutes the crime of fraud in the registration of identification cards”.
On the other hand, a source from the municipality of La Jagua del Pilar assured this publishing house that the MOE exposed this issue in a electoral follow-up committee which was done this year. Likewise, that the control entities such as the Prosecutor’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office and the public force are aware of these indicators that have alerted electoral observers and part of the citizenry.
Read full report of the MOE.